Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Marching on
The Nasdaq Composite notched a new record close Thursday for the first time since November 2021. The index gained almost 1%, boosted by a late rally in chip stocks, and ended the trading session at 16,091.92. The S&P 500 also finished at a fresh record after rising about 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.12%. The gains close out a winning February, the fourth positive month in a row for each of the major averages. The Nasdaq climbed more than 6% over the month, the S&P rose more than 5% and the Dow added more than 2%. Follow live market updates from the first trading day of March.
2. Internal controls
New York Community Bancorp on Thursday said it had identified "material weaknesses in the Company's internal controls," extending a tumultuous few months for the regional bank. Alessandro DiNello, who was appointed executive chairman in early February following a credit rating downgrade, is now stepping in as president and CEO, effective immediately. NYCB shares fell more than 20% in extended trading. The stock has been under pressure amid concerns around the bank's commercial real estate exposure and operations.
3. AI at odds
Elon Musk is suing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, claiming he broke a 2015 agreement to form a nonprofit lab and develop artificial intelligence "for the benefit of humanity broadly." Now, Musk claims, Altman and others have abandoned that mission and ChatGPT parent OpenAI "has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft." Lawyers for Musk, who co-founded OpenAI almost a decade ago, said the lawsuit was filed "to compel OpenAI to adhere to the Founding Agreement and return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity."
4. Forward movement
Congress passed a short-term funding bill Thursday, sending the stopgap to President Joe Biden's desk and averting a partial government shutdown this weekend. The measure extends deadlines for passing individual bills to fund federal agencies, buying lawmakers time before money runs out at the end of September. The piecemeal approach now calls for finalizing some budgets by March 8 and the rest by March 22, as opposed to one large omnibus bill that can be difficult to nail down. "The appropriations process is ugly; democracy is ugly. This is the way it works every year; always has. Except that we instituted some innovations; we broke the omnibus fever," said Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
5. Boosting the box office
The 2024 box office has its first big release — and it needs it. "Dune: Part Two" hits theaters Friday, and theater operators hope it can put an end to a relative drought in ticket sales. The domestic box office has tallied just $866.4 million in the first two months of the year, 18% lower than the same period last year. "We're used to these peaks and valleys," said Bill Barstow, who runs ACX Cinemas. "And certainly, there's no mystery to the last three years of the pandemic and then strikes and all the stuff that kind of kicks us. But then along comes something like 'Dune.'"
– CNBC's Hakyung Kim, Samantha Subin, Jesse Pound, Sam Meredith and Sarah Whitten and NBC News' Scott Wong and Sahil Kapur contributed to this report.
— Follow broader market action like a pro on CNBC Pro.
